


Fortitude

by ButterflyGhost



Series: due South Wizard!Verse [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tracked her to a place called Fortitude Pass...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fortitude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalijean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalijean/gifts), [sl_walker](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sl_walker).
  * Inspired by [Fortitude Pass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/349772) by [ButterflyGhost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost). 



White cold sun, and the sky scoured out by winter like a scratched pan. Then the wind started, horizontal and sharp, snow whipping up in spinning blades, cutting into his skin. He'd lost his staff, his food, his supplies. His face stung with snow. He knew, without checking, that there were minute flecks of blood freezing to his cheeks.  
…

Ah. He stirred in his sleep, and struggled to wake. No. It wouldn't let him go. He was here again, and there was no option but to go through it. Again. If he was here she couldn't be far behind.

 

It closed in on him then, dragged him back down, and he forgot that he was dreaming.  
...

He had tracked her through the blind white, as surely as though they were bound by a string. He had found her, buried and half frozen, and had crawled in next to her. Held her in his arms, half froze with her. Half died. But the two of them had half a life each, and maybe that was why they survived. They'd shared it, somehow, and crawled together out of the deep and clenching snow.

 

And she was beautiful. He'd known that already, of course. He'd seen the wanted pictures. Muggle pictures, no motion. He'd known, even before he'd been fully briefed, that this woman was no Muggle. He'd known, the moment he'd seen those flat, black and white images, that he'd be a fool to trust her. And he didn't. He didn't trust her at all.

 

What he had was worse than trust. It was fatal. Love. How had that happened? He remembered her voice, chanting a poem, while he held her fingers in his mouth, and thought at first she'd cast a spell on him. His heart hurt with every beat, and it wasn't the toil, it wasn't the cold. It was... it was a bruise, it was need. She had cast a spell on him. He was sure of it, right up to the very last day. They had found the supplies, eaten everything, huddled together for warmth. And he'd felt every movement of her body through the furs, smelled her, even her sweat catching in the back of his throat like perfume. He fought it. Fought it with every breath. Then, as he walked ahead of her, breaking a path through the snow with his body, she actually did try to cast a spell on him. He felt it hit him, and bounce back, and he felt her shock. Something twisted in his heart like a knife. Apparently this thing he felt for her, this ridiculous emotion, was his fault, not hers. He loved her because of some kink in his own nature. And she was just the manipulator he had guessed her to be, and he loved her anyway. Throwing a spell at his back, trying to control him, make a puppet of him, make a fool of him. Well, he was a fool then, but he wasn't going to let it show. 

 

In the hours that followed she seemed in shock. He smiled to himself, bitterly. He imagined she didn't fail very often.

 

That night she tried to seduce him, using more traditional methods, with as little success as her spell. His whole body ached to turn to her, but he clenched himself, turned away, pretended to sleep. He resented the fact that he yearned for her, that he loved this... this miscreant. That his heart was such a foolish yapping puppy of a thing it would follow on her heels like a lapdog.

 

The following morning they stood together on the lip of the valley, overlooking the little town. She turned to him, at last, desperately. “Let me go,” she pleaded, “what I did didn't hurt anyone... it's not my fault things went wrong.”

 

His heart clenched, missed a beat for a moment. He so longed to let her go. For a moment he wondered if she could see it in his eyes, if he had betrayed himself. Hunger. He smiled sideways, painfully, and glanced away. “I have to hand you in,” he said, and regret bled into his voice despite himself. 

 

“Prison will destroy me.”

 

For a long moment he paused. He could just... he could just let her go. Nobody would know, nobody would...

 

He shook his head. “It's my duty,” he said, as heavily as if he was passing sentence on himself, not her. “It's the law.”

 

At that the fight went out of her, and she dropped her head. “All right,” she hugged herself against the barren landscape. “All right. There's nowhere else to go.”

 

Nowhere else to go...  
...

 

Fraser woke, abruptly, cold sweat drying on his forehead. As usual, it took a few moments to reorient himself from the dream. Damn. He threw his forearm heavily across his face, blocking his vision. Horrible, horrible... 

 

The dream was a damned toothache. Came upon him when he least expected it, and every time he woke, he found himself thinking of her, in that prison, surrounded by more than walls. Imagined her magic crushed within her, and hated himself... hated himself for putting her through it.

 

Duty was a poor excuse. It wasn't duty that had forced him to turn her in. It was love... the fact that he resented it, resented her. That he wasn't going to allow something as ludicrous as mere affection dictate to him.

 

And so he had gone against every beat of his heart, and regretted it ever since. He'd been in prison, ever since.

 

Sleep did not come again that night.


End file.
